Staged on the first Sunday every November, the first of over 400 automobiles depart Hyde Park at sunrise. Eligibility criteria that requires the cars to be of three or four wheel design, and certified that their build took place prior to the 1 January 1905.

The event marks the anniversary of the original ‘Emancipation Run’, held in 1896 to acclaim the recently passed Locomotives on Highways Act. The legislation raised the speed limit for ‘light locomotives’ on roads from 4 to 14 mph and abolished the need for a man to walk ahead waving a red flag. To celebrate this new freedom, 33 intrepid motorists set off after breakfast from the Metropole Hotel in Whitehall, heading for the Sussex coast.